''The Yellow Cake Revue'' is a

musical composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...

for piano and voice.

Peter Maxwell Davies Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music. As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Music ...

composed the piece in 1980. He first performed it at the Stromness Hotel, in

Stromness Stromness (, non, Straumnes; nrn, Stromnes) is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital. E ...

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

, as part of the 1980

St Magnus Festival The St Magnus International Festival is an annual, week-long arts festival which takes place at midsummer on the islands of Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland. History and management The festival was founded in 1977 by a group inc ...

—a summer arts festival that he co-founded in 1977. English actress

Eleanor Bron Eleanor Bron (born 14 March 1938) is an English stage, film and television actress, and an author. Her film roles include Ahme in the Beatles musical ''Help!'' (1965), the Doctor in ''Alfie'' (1966), Margaret Spencer in '' Bedazzled'' (1967), an ...

recited the

spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...

portions for the debut performance. The world premiere of the revue was in the Pfalztheater in

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...

, Germany, on 5 May 1990. It was performed by pianist Andrew Olivant, soprano Jayne Casselman, and Friedrich Schilha.

Theme

''The Yellow Cake Revue'' concerns the threat that a

uranium mine Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. Over 50 thousand tons of uranium were produced in 2019. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia were the top three uranium producers, respectively, and together account f ...

might be constructed near

, a town on the largest island in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Yellowcake Yellowcake (also called urania) is a type of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before fue ...

, the revue's namesake, is the form of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

that was discovered on the island. When a

geological survey A geological survey is the systematic investigation of the geology beneath a given piece of ground for the purpose of creating a geological map or model. Geological surveying employs techniques from the traditional walk-over survey, studying outc ...

revealed the yellowcake deposits in the early 1970s, the

South of Scotland Electricity Board The South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) generated, transmitted and distributed electricity throughout the south of Scotland, including the former regions of Strathclyde, Lothian, Fife, Central, Borders and Dumfries and Galloway and a few t ...

wanted to mine the uranium to fuel a

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

. Once the islanders understood the ramifications of

solution mining In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a mining process used to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into a deposit, ''in situ''. In situ leach works by artificially disso ...

the island, they (and the

Orkney Islands Council The Orkney Islands Council ( gd, Comhairle Eileanan Arcaibh), is the local authority for Orkney, Scotland. It was established in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and was largely unaffected by the Scottish local government changes o ...

) opposed the initiative unilaterally. Davies was moved to write ''The Yellow Cake Revue'' after a public examiner's report advised the

Secretary of State for Scotland The secretary of state for Scotland ( gd, Rùnaire Stàite na h-Alba; sco, Secretar o State fir Scotland), also referred to as the Scottish secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the Unit ...

to deny the SSEB's request to mine. Although he was English, Davies was an Orkney resident from 1971 until his death in 2016.

Structure

The work is a sequence of

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

songs and

recitation A recitation in a general sense is the act of reciting from memory, or a formal reading of verse or other writing before an audience. Public recitation is the act of reciting a work of writing before an audience. Academic recitation In a ...

s, with two interludes for piano. The first interlude, "Farewell to Stromness", has become one of Davies' most popular pieces, and has been arranged for various instruments. "Yesnaby Ground", too, is often performed as an independent piece. # Tourist Board Song: O come to sunny Warbeth # Patriotic Song: You've heard of the man with the pace-maker # Piano Interlude: Farewell to Stromness # Recitation - Nuclear Job Interview 1: The Security Guard # Uranium's Daughters' Dance: They said, when they'd extracted the uranium from the ore # Recitation - Nuclear Job Interview 2: The Truck Driver # Atlantic Breezes # Recitation - Nuclear Job Interview 3: The Mental Healthworker # Piano Interlude: Yesnaby Ground # The Tourist Song: Have you heard of the terrorist suicide squad? # The Triumph of the Cockroach: As earthquakes subsided

Farewell to Stromness

"Farewell to Stromness" is the single most famous piece of music from the composition, and is Davies's best-known and most often performed work. Originally written as a piano solo, it has been transcribed for several solo instruments, most notably guitar. Words were added to the tune by

Ray Connolly Ray Connolly (born 4 December 1940) is a British writer. He is best known for his journalism and for writing the screenplays for the films ''That'll Be the Day'' and its sequel '' Stardust'', for which he won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain ...

for the 1983

Channel Four Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service i ...

film, '' Forever Young''. The lone representative of Davies's output in

Classic FM Hall of Fame The Classic FM Hall of Fame is an annual compilation of the most popular 300 classical works as polled by listeners of Classic FM through a public vote. With more than 200,000 voters, each choosing their three favourites in order of preference, ...

, "Farewell to Stromness" was the subject of the

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

programme ''Soul Music'' on 31 July 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yellow Cake Revue Compositions by Peter Maxwell Davies 1980 compositions Compositions for piano Compositions with a narrator